Oasis’s summer tour is set to reignite full-blown Britpop mania—and just in time, American portraitist Elizabeth Peyton’s double portrait of the Gallagher brothers is getting renewed attention. Liam + Noel (Gallagher) (1996), a portrait capturing the Oasis frontmen at the apex of their fame, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s on June 24th, carrying an estimate of £1.5 million–£2 million ($2.03 million–$2.71 million). The painting will be on view at the London galleries from June 18th until the sale.
The painting is among the largest and most complex of Peyton’s portraits of the duo. It is based on a photograph by the late Belgian photographer Stefan De Batselier and presents the brothers in casual tracksuits, locked in an embrace. Their matching features and subtly differentiated expressions reflect the tension and tenderness that have defined their public relationship.
“This is Peyton at her absolute best,” Antonia Gardner, head of contemporary evening sale at Sotheby’s London, told Artsy. “An intimate, emotionally charged portrait of Britpop royalty, painted at the exact moment Oasis defined a generation. One of the most significant works by the artist ever to come to market, it doesn’t just capture the iconic duo, but peels back the public image to reveal something far more intimate—a layered and complex sibling dynamic.”
Peyton painted the portrait in the wake of Oasis’s record-breaking shows at Knebworth Park, where 2.5 million fans applied for just 250,000 tickets. At the time, the band’s second album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, had reached number one in the U.K. and platinum status in the U.S. The portrait is also from a critical period in Peyton’s career, just a few years after her breakthrough show at the Chelsea Hotel in 1993.
Liam + Noel (Gallagher) is one of four portraits Peyton made of the brothers together. Another hangs in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The artist also made several individual portraits. One such work, Blue Liam (1995), sold for $4.07 million in November 2024 on the Fair Warning auction app, setting an auction record for the artist.
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